As I just mentioned in one of the Ebert threads, *Sunshine *seems headed for all time sci-fi classic" territory until, if not halfway through, pretty close. Then, spoiler alert, it shockingly becomes just another cliched, cheesy slasher flick. Total WTF.
What other examples can you name when you were thinking a film you were watching was headed for the pantheon, until some ridiculous plot development or other cinematic sin torpedoed its chances for greatness?
Sorry, nothing to add, just wanted to say you’ve put your finger on exactly what bothered me about Sunshine so thanks for that!
Yes, I pretty much felt the same about Sunshine.
The only thing I can contribute, Hancock, doesn’t really fit the mold: while it did deteriorate into crap due to a sudden, unexpected change in mood halfway through, I suspect the change was due to trying, but failing, to reach greatness. Also, it never seemed exactly ‘destined for greatness’, but merely like an amusing, and maybe even somewhat interesting deconstruction of superhero tropes that all of a sudden added some convoluted pseudo-Greek mythology combined with a tortured (in more than one sense) love story that sent the movie from an entertaining evening’s diversion spiralling into the realms of WTF.
Seriously, I wondered whether it maybe was some exquisite corpse-like experiment in movie form, with the entire film being handed over to a completely different writing and directing team in the middle; none of it made any sense at all, none of it seemed in any way to follow logically from the events in the first part.
Gladiator. Started out as a stunning historical epic, then devolved into a 70s-era TV movie. I expected to see Richard Chamberlain walk out at some point.
That’s exactly what happened. It was rewritten and tweaked by so many different sets of writers, directors, and focus groups that a mess was probably inevitable.
That’s how I felt about Requiem For A Dream. It started out as a gritty film about drug users and it ended up as a ludicrous cartoon.
Event Horizon was a fantastically chilling SF movie involving a ship that brings out hallucinations of the crew’s deepest fears - and then someone was apparently “inspired” by Hellraiser, did an awful makeup job on Sam Neill and it went downhill fast.
This is precisely the movie I was thinking of when I opened the thread. The first part looks like it’s going to be something truly unusual and terrifying in sci-fi/horror, and then Sam Neill starts his tiresome Doug Bradley impression.
Wall-E.
The first part was an amazing silent film ala Chaplin, but once he ended up in space it was pretty ordinary.
That reminds me of Up, where the first 10 or 15 minutes was great and then the rest was mostly forgettable.
Splice. By the time Dren became a male and started his rape/murder rampage, I was done. What a cheap 3rd act twist to such a good sci-fi concept.
I love Sunshine. I get the criticisms of the “slasher” side to it, but I just don’t care. The visuals, the music, the dichotomy of insta-vaporizing sunlight and insta-freezing shade, the strange spirituality of the characters in the face of death and the general mystery behind everything all make it a great experience for me.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has one of the best chases in movie history (“who are those guys?”) but then it drops off considerably when they head to Bolivia. You have to see the final scene at least once, though.
And I may catch hell for saying this, but The Princess Bride suffers very slightly from the same problem. The first half (up to about the Fire Swamp) is better. The second half is still pretty good, but you want a movie to end with a bang and that one starts with it.
Nearly every Terry Gilliam movie.
I know that’s unkind - and his movies are brilliant in their way (such ambition, texture, etc), but they just seem to fizzle out.
I don’t think I’d agree. Just off the top of my head, Brazil and Time Bandits work right up to the end.
The Good Shepherd.
One astute critic noted that the film began like it just might be The Godfather of spy movies. Somewhere in act two it goes to pot.
Octopussy. Yes, the James Bond movie. It wasn’t exactly looking like a masterpiece, but it started out much better than you’d think, then descended into awfulness.
The pre-credits opening was cheesy, I admit, but that was par for the course with those segments, and the mini-jet was pretty cool. After that, the movie gives us the dying agent dressed as a clown and the Soviet general laying out his plan for invasion. Pretty good stuff. The previous Bond movie, For Your Eyes Only , had been the best Bond movie in ages, getting rid of the Christopher Wood puerilities, getting Bond back to basics, and even adapting the story directly from three of Fleming’s Bond stories (the titular For Your Eyes Only, the bulk of it from Risico, in the same collection, and with a dash from the novel Live and Let Die). Octopussy looked like it was going the same route – weave a new story out of bits of unused Fleming stories. Aficianados could already see the Faberge Egg was from Property of a Lady (a story in the collection published as Octopussy). Presumably they were going to work bits from the story Octopussy in as well.
But then it all went stupid, with the Island of Women, Bond in a Tiger Hunt 9and that stupid dog-training joke), Q in a hot air balloon, and the whole circus thing.
The basic idea of the “Let’s blow up a nuclear device at a US base” ploy was credible – in fact, it was the same plot as in the Frederick Forsyth novel The Fifth Protocol that came out about the same time (and got turned into a movie with future bond Pierce Brosnan). But it was buried in so much awful that nobody cared. The low point had to be Bond dressed and made up as a clown.
First word out of my mouth when I read the OP. The preparations for the opening battle scene were so perfect, the fire arrows launching into the forest, the cavalry encircling the barbarians; finally a movie showing a Roman legion at the height of its power. I’m sitting in the theater thinking if the arena scenes are anything like this, I will never tire of watching this film. And then it switches mid-battle to some bizarre stop-motion effect, and it’s all downhill from there.
And don’t get me started on a gladiator getting to kill the Emperor mano-a-mano in front of the Praetorian Guard…
Saving Private Ryan. The opening twenty minutes are probably the best battle scene ever filmed. And then they start the story and the movie descends into mediocrity.
I found the ending of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” sort of disappointing. Oh, and Sir Lancelot the Brave’s rescue of Sir Galahad the Chaste from great peril. That was very disappointing.